Settlement Agreements in Blackfriars and Temple EC4
Simons Rodkin Solicitors LLP has a reliable and experienced Employment Law department. Our offices at 32 Bloomsbury Street WC1 are located reasonably close to Blackfriars and Temple, EC4.
A settlement agreement can be used where an employee leaves/resigns his employment and receives a lump sum of money in settlement of relevant claims. In practice, all claims are settled past, present and future.
We take our role very seriously, and we give detailed advice as to legal rights, amendments which are required to the draft agreement and also as to whether the amount offered is adequate/reasonable.
In our experience, settlement agreements typically involve ex gratia payments of between three to six months remuneration depending upon the negotiating position of the employee.
The agreement itself is usually worded very onerously and one-sided in favour of the employers.
It is invariably common that we advise our employee clients of the need to amend the agreement. Typically about 70% of our amendments are agreed, and there may be several more rounds of negotiations until the final wording of the agreement is made out.
Typical examples of Settlement Agreement amendments are:
- Removal of provisions for any breach of the agreement however minor that will result in the settlement monies being clawed back – including into the future.
- Waiver of non-compete covenants to enable our client to work for a competitor post-termination.
- Increasing the scope of the non-disclosure covenants to make living with the agreement commercially and practicably workable – including the ability to advise new and prospective employers and recruitment consultants of the fact that a settlement agreement has been signed in order to discuss employment history.
- We will also incorporate a data protection clause as otherwise future data protection rights would be in the normal course written off by the agreement. This is particularly important to employees who have suffered from stress at work or other medical conditions where continued data protection is of importance.
Settlement Agreement costs
All agreements invariably contain a contribution to our legal costs. This is usually sufficient if we are instructed to sign off the agreement without any amendments. Our basic role is to provide a certificate to the employers to state that we have provided to our clients’ advice that by signing an agreement, they wave their relevant statutory rights.
However, the amount of contribution is usually negotiable, and it is not unusual for us to secure reasonable increases in the cost contribution. However, there can still be a shortfall depending upon the work which we are instructed to carry out.
How to Instruct our Firm
We do not charge for initial telephone calls.
Please call our reception and make an appointment to come and see us. It would be useful if you could bring to the meeting or e-mail us in advance of the meeting a copy of your employment contract and a recent payslip, together with any separate non-competition agreement. We would also ask if you could ask your HR Manager to send us a copy of the agreement in word format, which will make it easier for us to amend.
Our Deadlines
We are aware of sometimes very tight deadlines being placed by employers, and we deal with these deadlines. If the agreement has to be amended, we advise employers that the agreement needs to be amended and we advise of a new appointment organised to sign off the agreement and for any relevant deadlines to be extended. This, in practice, does not cause any problems.
We like to think that we give a first-class service with settlement agreements and we await to hear from you.
Please contact us on enquiries@sr-law.co.uk.